Computer und Musik: Eine Einführung in die digitale Klang—und Musikverarbeitung by Philipp Ackermann (review)

BOOKS COMPUTER UND MUSIK: EINE EINFiJHRUNG IN DIE DIGITALE KLANG-UND MUSIKVERARBEITUNG by Philipp Ackermann. Springer-Verlag, Vienna and New York, 1991. Serie: Springers Angewandte Informatik (Hrsg. Helmut Schauer). 346 pp., illus. (in German). Reviewed by Guerino Mazzola, Swiss NationalFoundation Project, the Interpretation and Performance Workstation on NeXTStep Environments at Zurich University , Switzerland. Music-and-computers is an important subject within the dynamic landscape of today's media technology. Computers playa steadily growing role not only within commercial and artistic music production, but also within musicological research. It is meritorious of the young computer scientist Philipp Ackermann at the Multimedia Lab of Zurich University to offer, with his first work, a broad overview of this subject in a text that possesses clear articulation , transparency and intelligibility. The only prerequisites for reading this book are a minimal acquaintance with computers and some basics of high school mathematics. The search for cross-references and original literature is eased by a rich bibliography of roughly 200 titles, a glossary and indexes of names and subjects. The appendix is rounded out by tables on selected centers of computer music and representative software and hardware. The book is partitioned into 11 chapters that can be read more or less independently -a commendable quality for an introductory overview. The book starts with the fundamentals of acoustics , including Fourier analysis. This is followed by a brief introduction to additive and subtractive sound synthesis and its history. The third chapter is an introduction to computer technology, including a brilliant presentation of hardware and software systems for two CC> 1994ISAST REVIEWS state-of-the-art workstations: Apple Macintosh and NeXT. The fourth chapter is an introduction to digital Fourier analysis via discrete methods of Fast Fourier Transformation (FIT), including a description of its implementation in different software types such as Mathematica, Sound Designer II and Signalize. This is followed by a discussion of some dominant techniques of digital sound synthesis, including Chowning's famous FM approach, as well as sampling. Chapter Six is concerned with digital sound processing, an insightful presentation of the concepts of mixer, amplifier, delay, reverb, filter, phase-vocoder and pitch-shifter. The logically stringent sequel deals with software systems for digital sound synthesis, including Apple Macintosh's SoundManager and NeXT's Audio-Kits and Sound-Kits, as well as a short history of the subject from Mathews's first research in the late 1950s. A lucid and properly extensive discussion of digital sound control by the leading MIDI-code, in Chapter Eight, is followed by a chapter on digital recording , which I admire for its clear graphic presentation of compact disc technology and direct-to-disc recording. After these more fundamental aspects, we are introduced to the ever-growing zoo of software for composition, education, notation and sequencing. Even if one is right in thinking that there is no book that can grab this exploding area of the operationalization of musical thinking, the tenth chapter gives a good summary ofwhat will happen when we follow the path initiated by the pioneers of music computers. The last technical chapter (Chapter 11) offers a staggering perspective on what we can expect for multimedia technology in the years ahead. In fact, this subject is Ackermann's particular field of interest, and he rightly concludes in his postscript chapter that there will be a huge amount of interdisciplinary research on the network between humans and machines, and that this is governed by the need for new metaphors of multimedia communication and structuring. However, this book cannot be the last word on the subject. First, the development of computer technology and musicological research is growing with incredible speed. Second, the presentation of this field needs some refinement and more experimentation. The refinements would concern the presentation of the fundamental parameters of sound, which in this book has too much emphasis on its physical aspects. It is by no means trivial to distinguish between pitch and frequency-musical thinking is a highly symbolic affair and cannot be absorbed by acoustics. In this sense, Ackerman's predominant presentation of Fourier analysis and Fourier synthesis is somewhat unilateral and should be compared with, say, wavelet-synthesis and waveletanalysis . This predominant presentation should also...